NHL 2007 season (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Gatie]

Paul, if you want to hear something really sad, my brother was talking to a couple guys he knows from Toronto and they are looking at Gill as a "1C" type defenseman to go with McCabe and Kaberle (1-1A). Similar to the Habs fans who are all excited about their 'major signings' of "He who flops to the ice, scissors his legs like a skirt wearing soccer player and therefore shalt not be named" and The Boullion Cube, some people really, really overeact up there. Boy are they going to be disappointed when they see The Pylon in action.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i always got a kick out of dale arnold when he would say "gill plays so well against jagr". well why did jagr skate to the other side of the ice, only to undress gill time after time? gill sucks. if he was 6'1, he never would have had an NHL job.

CJ

 

[Jason L.]

To steal a bit from Bill Simmons:

"Right now there are many neurotic 13 year-olds all across Canada wondering - will I get to see a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup in my lifetime?"

 

[nolesrule]

Congrats to the Anaheim Ducks on winning the Stanley Cup, mighty-less as they are.

Bring on 2007-2008.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Wow, participation in a hockey thread!

This is three straight non-hockey cities winning the Cup -- Tampa, Raleigh and now Anaheim. Last Saturday night's game had the worst prime time rating for any show in NBC's history. The NHL is hanging on by life support at this point.

 

[Walter C]

Places that shouldn't have a hockey team to begin with, especially Anaheim when they started out because of a movie. Bettman expanded the NHL way too fast.

I lost total interest in the playoffs when the Sabres got eliminated, and even then, my interest was low, because the Flyers were not in it.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I was rooting for the Ducks simply because they were the toughest team in the league last year and led the league in fighting majors. The playoffs are a marathon and a certain amount of grit is needed to outlast the other teams and Anaheim had it. I would hope Bettman would see this and stop his silly "we need to eliminate the violence in the sport to attract the same new fans that we haven't been able to attract for the last 30 years" plan, but I know better. Congrats to the Ducks, they are a well balanced, talented team and deserved the win. I just wish I lived out west so I could see more of their type of hockey.

 

[DavidJ]

I lost interest in the playoffs when Detroit got knocked out. I was really hoping for a Buffalo-Detroit finals. The league did expand too fast and some contraction while painful would help in the long run. Scheduling has been an issue of stupidity as well. How many times am I supposed to care about Detroit playing Nashville? This isn't baseball. Not being able to watch hockey on ESPN is also a major problem. I mean how many people actually get VS? Oh and the strike...hockey has almost killed itself. They have at least made the game irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of the USA. Which is a shame. It is a brilliant sport and playoff hockey is awesome.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I watched very little of the playoffs this year. I'm probably one of the few non-Wings fans in Michigan (I'm a Habs fan), and was pulling for Buffalo.

We did attend a lot of Plymouth Whalers games this year, though -- probably about 18, including numerous playoff games. The Whalers won the Ontario Hockey League title this year. The OHL is juniors (16-21), and is the equivalent playing level as NCAA hockey, for those unfamiliar with it. We actually sat behind former Rangers and Wings goalie Eddie Giacomin at one game of the finals against Sudbury. He's a native of Sudbury and played his junior hockey for that team in the early 1960's. We chatted about the game. He's a very nice guy.

 

[nolesrule]

Wow, that's insulting. Shouldn't have a hockey team to begin with? Why? Because there are no frozen ponds in winter?

Only Montreal and Detroit outdrew the Lightning this season, and last season the Bolts were the #2 draw in the league. 29 games with capacity at or above 98%, and no games where capacity was under 75%.

There are far worse "hockey towns" in this league than Tampa.

For the record, the NHL teams in double digits for less than 75% capacity for games this season were Boston (10), Chicago (37), Florida (14), New Jersey (20), NY Islanders (15), St. Louis (30), Washington (19).


There are times when that subscription to Sports Business Journal really pays off.

 

[Ennsio]

Three years in a row of a Canadian team making it to the final...and losing. :frowning: At least Calgary and Edmonton played neck and neck with their opponents right down to the end (and were underdogs to begin with). Ottawa, on the other hand, just got spanked and totally outplayed.

Unless it can rally the city's future support of the team, it's sad to see teams win in cities that don't know anything about hockey, yet cities that are absolutely crazy about hockey not get that chance. Let's get more teams in places where people are crazy about hockey (i.e. Hamilton, Winnipeg), and stop putting in franchises in cities where people know nothing about hockey and could care less about it. Those ratings for NBC were terrible.

Any idea what is needed to boost viewer numbers in the US?

 

[nolesrule]

If you stop putting franchises in cities that know nothing about hockey, you won't have many franchises. There aren't enough "hockey towns" in North America to support the NHL.

I just don't buy the "not a hockey town" argument. What is a hockey town? How is one created? Can one even be created?

Chris Kontos scored 4 goals in the very first game the Lightning ever played in 1992. You better believe there were hats on the ice after his third goal. And the people don't know anything about hockey. Uh huh.

If you look at the TV ratings, then I guess you could come to the conclusion that there are no "hockey towns" in the U.S. I guess the NHL should just fold all the U.S. teams. :rolleyes

 

[Scott Merryfield]

That's a difficult question to answer. The NHL has struggled with attracting a national TV audience in the US as far back as the early 1970's, so this has been going on for over 35 years. The sport has never really taken off in US markets except in some northern states. Joe's attendance figures for Tampa are more the exception than the rule, and may be due to a lot of northern transplants living in the area (I'm guessing, of course). I'd be curious to know the playoff TV ratings for this year in Tampa compared to the more traditional northern "hockey" cities.

Bettman was interviewed locally near the end of the regular season, and from that interview I really believe he has no clue regarding the realities of hockey in the U.S. He cannot understand why Detroit fans hate being in the Western Conference, thinks markets like Atlanta, Raleigh, Nashville, Miami, etc. are solid, and wants to legislate all the physical play out of the game. He also thinks the Versus television deal is good for the league, even though something very similar was tried and failed with SportsChannel several years ago, and is failing again.

It's time for the NHL to find a commissioner who understands hockey. The sport will never be as popular as the NFL, NBA or MLB in the States. The NHL needs to recognize that, market the league in those areas that will support the sport, and forget about trying to be the next NBA at a national level.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Bettman should stop worrying about boosting viewers and start worrying about not losing the fans the game has now. I used to go to 5-10 games a year, expensive seats, and I got the playoff tickets package (every game played at home) the last 3 times the B's were in the playoffs. Didn't go to one game last year and I probably won't go again if Bettman (and the Bruin's coach) keeps demanding they skate like a bunch of nancy-boys. I'm a hardcore hockey fan. But I'm an NHL hockey fan. Not college hockey, european hockey, purse swinging hockey, etc., but real North American, self-policing, vent your frustrations, live by the code, NHL hockey. I've not seen it (except in a few flashes) in a long time.

 

[DavidJ]

I may be misunderstanding your thoughts, but I like the direction hockey is heading as far as the game play. It is still quite physical. Anaheim just won the cup playing physical (some would even say, dirty) hockey. And I too think being physical is part of the game, but I do wish they would open it up more for the "skill" players. There is no practical way to change this, but the NHL rink is to small for the size and speed of the players. So they have been forced to look at other ways to open up the game and I think that they need to continue.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The 2-5-10-Game for the instigator rule has to go. Fighting is part of the game, period.

 

[Ennsio]

I'm referring to the cities that frequently get around 8000 people for their games. I think Nashville and Phoenix hit that mark several times this year. I see from this site http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance?year=2007
that Tampa now has one of the top attendance rates in the league, so if that means that hockey has really been embraced there, then that is great. My gripe is with Bettman and the league pulling teams from hockey-crazy cities like Winnipeg and moving them to places like Phoenix, where there is very little existing knowledge of hockey among the locals and so it becomes an experiment to see if it will take off. I realize that Winnipeg does not have a strong enough economy to be able to support an NHL franchise, but until just recently, the fates of the Flames and the Oilers were very tenuous as well because of difficulty competing with the big American cities that could afford to have a team but did not have nearly as much public interest in the NHL as these two cities. Thankfully, I think the salary caps have made it easier for these smaller market teams to compete (appearances in the cup final haven't hurt), but before then it seemed like Bettman and the league were not doing enough to protect the teams in the cities that live and breathe hockey while trying to introduce hockey into brand new markets.

 

[Ennsio]

I also think that Bettman is a huge part of the problem. Can we as fans stage a coup and oust him? That would be a wonderful thing to see. He just does not get hockey, which is very ironic for his current position.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Bettman came from the NBA, so it's really not surprising that he doesn't fully understand hockey. It also explains why he keeps trying to turn the NHL into the next NBA. Here's a news flash, Gary... the NHL will never be like the NBA in the U.S.

 

[Walter C]

Scott,

Just wondering why Red Wing fans hate being in the West? I'm guessing it's because too many of their road games start late?